


sun (disambiguation)

by helveticaneue



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Character Study, Getting Together, M/M, Magical Realism, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-05-17 11:25:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14831382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helveticaneue/pseuds/helveticaneue
Summary: "The first time Charlie McAvoy realized Auston Matthews was special, Matthews didn’t score." - Bruce Arthur, The Toronto Star(Or: Auston burns bright. Charlie doesn't wear sunscreen.)





	1. Text

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [angelheadedhipster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheadedhipster/pseuds/angelheadedhipster) in the [PuckingRare2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PuckingRare2018) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  _I was quietly googling these two this morning and an article in a real human newspaper started with "The first time Charlie McAvoy realized Auston Matthews was special, Matthews didn’t score" and if thats not a fic prompt i dont know what is_  
>     
> So I got a sunburn at a baseball game. This fic is inspired by that. 
> 
> Thanks to Lotts for the beta and the validation over words Google tried to claim weren't real.

The first time Charlie McAvoy realized Auston Matthews was special, he didn’t score. He didn’t need to.

He practically — no, literally — flew across the ice, like he wasn’t even touching it.

(He wasn’t.)

It was always in Charlie’s nature to see these things. His mom always said he had his head in the clouds, but he thinks that maybe everyone else does, that he’s the only one who can see clearly.

Most people are just that, people. But then there’s the others, the special ones, the boy who didn’t last long in youth hockey with white, white skin patterned like Ming dynasty porcelain, the woman at Waldbaums who left red footprints behind her on the off-white tile that didn’t seem to match her shoes, the barista who never spoke above a whisper while flowers bloomed from their wrists and fingertips.

And then there’s Auston.

Auston skims above the ground, like he’s just a little bit above everyone else. Just a little bit better than everyone else. Charlie doesn’t mind. He thinks Auston could walk on water if he tried.

-

It’s in slow motion. Not quite smooth, like each frame gets a little stuck before jerking forward again. The second Auston touches the water it’s like the sound has been sucked from the world, or maybe it’s just moving too slowly for Charlie to hear.

Well, not quite touches it. The water remains a reverent space away from Auston himself. Okay, so maybe a few millimeters. It’s like he’s parting it and, fuck, Charlie has got to stop making religious metaphors, though he’s sure whatever city Auston ends up playing for in two years will do it for him. Auston’s going to be that good.

Charlie watches the water get displaced where Auston cannonballs into the pool, watches the tiny drops of water creep into the air, almost flickering in that jerky motion. He doesn’t check to see if everyone and everything else is moving that same way. He doesn’t stop looking at Auston.

“Charlie!” Auston calls, treading water by the edge. “Come in, the water’s nice.”

The Michigan heat is nothing new, not when Charlie’s accustomed to Long Island humidity, but water sounds nice all the same. Charlie leaves Fitzy and sits on the edge of the pool, lets himself fall in, the water welcoming him much more immediately than it did Auston.

Even in chlorinated water, Auston smells like dry heat. Or maybe feels. Charlie’s never really been good at separating his senses.

They’re pressed together, Auston holding Charlie up against the wall, and Charlie can’t recall exactly how it happened but he’s not opposed. Auston’s close and Charlie is thinking wildly of the desert, where he’s never been. He’s standing in the red-orange dirt with the land rising up around him. There’s a fucking cactus, even though it’s cliche. There’s not a cow skull — that’s too cliche.

“You’re orange,” he tells Auston, poking his side.

Auston looks amused. Confused? Bemused. “Orange?”

“Like, if you were a color,” Charlie says. “Or, like, the sun. Not the actual sun, but how you feel when you’re, you know, in it.”

“Hot?” Auston asks, pressing Charlie harder against the side of the pool, and he definitely looks amused now. If Charlie’s hands were free he’d probably flap them a little, frustrated, but as of now Auston has him pretty pinned. His only offense is poking, so he does that again.

“That’s not—never mind,” he says. “Let me up, I gotta go dunk Greenie.”

“You will _not_ ,” Jordan says, and Auston looks Charlie in the eye, winks, and goes after him.

Charlie keeps an eye on the splashing, but it looks normal. _Auston_ looks normal. But the way he makes Charlie feel — like the way direct sun is pleasant for a few moments after stepping out of an air conditioned building, before the sun has yet to fully overwhelm you — that’s not quite normal. That’s special.

-

Auston is in Switzerland and Charlie is in Boston, and Charlie is hyperaware of the 3740 miles between them, give or take a few.

Charlie is hyperaware of his phone buzzing in his pocket or on his nightstand at odd hours, Auston hoping to commiserate about online classes or some nagging pain, updating Charlie on learning to communicate with his teammates when he’s bilingual in English and Spanish and they’re bilingual in French and German.

Charlie gets the feeling they can understand each other pretty well, anyway. Hockey is a language as universal as _Mean Girls_ claims math is, at least to guys like them.

Charlie catches their games, when he can, and he swears he’s not biased when he says Auston is the best player on the ice. Auston says the same to Charlie, and Charlie knows Auston, at least, is biased.

His phone feels too hot under his fingertips when he texts Auston back. Every single mile of three thousand, seven hundred, forty, forty one, forty two, forty three burns like the desert sun that Charlie’s New York skin has never felt.

It doesn’t hurt, really, more pleasantly almost-too-hot, but Charlie knows it’ll leave his skin stinging and pink before long.

-

Auston is the only one Charlie sees anymore, the only real special one. He still only skims the ground, he still lets off heat that’s familiar and unfamiliar all at the same time. They’re at the combine in matching skintight underarmor, and, like, five people have made “suns out, guns out” jokes, and it’s true that Auston’s arms look really good.

Auston comes up to him, touches his bicep, and it’s like the humidity has been sucked out of the air, replaced by the dry heat Charlie always sees around him.

“Just interviewed with the Islanders,” he says. “Told them I have a friend from around there.”

“The Isles play in Brooklyn, not Long Beach,” Charlie tells him. “Anyway, everyone knows you’re going to Toronto, I don’t know why they’re wasting their time.”

Auston shrugs. “Me neither, I just keep telling them I know this really great defenseman that they should consider—”

Charlie shoves him. “Shut up, you do not.”

“I don’t,” Auston admits. “Do you want to get dinner? I’m fucking starving.”

Mikey McLeod walks past and he looks normal and Charlie knows he didn’t always look like that, though he can’t pinpoint why. It’s just Auston, now, feet not touching the ground, blazing hot and bright.

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s get dinner.”

-

If Auston is the sun, then Charlie is probably Icarus. He’s not sure just when he’ll fall.

-

Charlie likes the streets of Boston, likes the way it feels old yet bursting with new life. Boston is a college town, at its heart, the home of dozens of universities brought together in one.

It’s going to be his home for a lot longer than college, now, ever since the Bruins called his name.

It’s 429 miles from arena doorstep to arena doorstep, so much closer than having an ocean between them, but it still feels so far. There’s the NHL and the NCAA, there’s Auston’s near million dollar contract while Charlie’s still bored to death in communications classes and sleeping through astronomy.

It’s the same as ever, just Pioneer traded for Boston. Just Boston undrafted traded for Boston drafted.

Just Auston in Switzerland traded for Auston in Toronto.

Auston’s outgrowing him, Charlie realizes. When that heat he gives off was once for Charlie, now it melts the ice in Toronto, in Michigan, even in Boston where he’s as close to Charlie as he’s ever been.

Auston’s putting down roots in Toronto and twisting up into the clouds. He’s towering over CN tower and Charlie’s just standing here, feet touching the ground.

“It’ll be your time soon,” Auston tells him. “Next year, I bet. We could play each other in the playoffs.”

“Not sure Toronto could handle that again,” Charlie teases.

“I’m not sure _Mitch_ could,” Auston says, and Charlie is reminded of that life outside of Charlie’s own as Auston goes on about Marner, who loves the Leafs like he loves his own life, who is Toronto enough that when Auston made a home there he made a home with him.

They’re just friends, Charlie knows, but there was a time when Charlie and Auston had all the same friends, when Charlie spent freshman year regaling Auston with stories about Clayton and Kieffer.

Since Auston and his teammates mostly didn’t speak the same language, he would mostly tell Charlie stories about his mother in return. Charlie’s met Ema a few times, and she’s like Auston in the way she burns, though she's comforting warmth where Auston is bright, scalding heat. He likes Ema. (Though not as much as he likes Auston, of course.)

-

Charlie goes to Arizona.

Auston isn’t there, of course. Auston’s in Montreal, beating the Canadiens. Auston is scoring the go-ahead goal in the first. Auston is scoring the OT game winner.

It’s pleasantly hot and familiar in the dark when they leave the arena, in the few moments between the air conditioning of Gila River and the bus, the few moments between the bus and the hotel. It’s a dry heat, and Charlie’s phone reads somewhere in the 80s, and his heart is thumping with Auston.

 _ur state is too fucking hot_ , he texts Auston, even though it isn’t, even though he kind of loves the feeling of briefly melting in the heat.

 _u know u love it_ , Auston texts back, like he knows, and Charlie will never tell him that he’s right.

-

“You look at me like I’m special,” Auston says.

“That’s because you are.”

“I’m just a normal guy,” Auston tells him.

“I’ve tried to tell you,” Charlie says. “I’ve tried to tell you how special you are. You’re like—” He stops, because how are you supposed to say _You’re so fucking beautiful and bright and important and you’re the best fucking thing I’ve ever seen. You remind me of things I’ve never seen and places I’ve never been and I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like if our bodies were touching because I think I would burn up and I think I would love it._

“You fucking float, you know?” he settles on, and it’s so fucking insignificant in terms of all Auston is.

-

“Hey,” Auston says. “Hey.”

And his hand is huge on Charlie’s face, spanning from his chin to his cheek, his thumb brushing toward Charlie’s lips, and Charlie is burning, his whole body is burning, and aching from the bruises forming where Auston hit him earlier on the ice, a gesture that’s more affectionate from him than anything else.

It’s not fireworks when Auston leans in, but Charlie knew it wouldn’t be. He knew it would burn, not spark.

Auston pulls back, and Charlie is aflame. “When did you get so special?” Auston asks.

 _You’re the special one_ , Charlie doesn’t say. _You’ve always been the special one._ “It’s been me the whole time,” he says.

Their bodies are touching, they’re touching, and Charlie welcomes it because he’s flying, fucking flying, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](https://helveticanouveau.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/nikucherov). Come talk to me about Charlie McAvoy’s cheeks! 
> 
> Took a little inspo for this fic from this [Boston Globe article](https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/bruins/2018/05/09/for-charlie-mcavoy-all-came-tumbling-down-quickly/k1mtiuVUGrZpzXvWMrKjBP/story.html?camp=bg%3Abrief%3Arss%3Afeedly&rss_id=feedly_rss_brief&s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter). Contains a direct quote a few words long.


	2. Podfic

 

  


| 

### sun (disambiguation)

###### Podfic duration

00:11:00 

###### Mediafire downloads:

  * [MP3 file](http://www.mediafire.com/file/gfjijdu55jn156b/%5BHockey+RPF%5D+sun+%28disambiguation%29.mp3) | 15.28 MB
  * [M4B audiobook](http://www.mediafire.com/file/cx5hvwnj29hsp94/%5BHockey+RPF%5D+sun+%28disambiguation%29.m4b) | 9.62 MB

  
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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first ever podfic so consider checking it out if you enjoy that sort of thing!

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://helveticanouveau.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/nikucherov).


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